Grassland Common: Linking Ecology and Architecture

d___Lab, Essay, expanding design practices, Middle Density, Repair, Territory and mobility

Agrarian Landscape, Architecture&nature, Australia, Cultural agitator, Design, Ecosystem ecology, Ecosystem integrity, Educational, Environment, Essay, Housing, Inhabiting Landscape, Landscape, Melbourne, repair, Territorial Approach, Utopian practices, Vegetation

This essay is an excerpt of "Repair" by Mauro Baracco and Louise Wright from Baracco+Wright Architects. Published by Actar Publishers -- https://actar.com/product/repair/

Recent examples of urban expansion in Melbourne’s northern growth corridor have cleared extensive areas of native grasslands despite that temperate grasslands are the most threatened ecosystem in Australia.The area is characterised by large scale areas of plains grasslands and grassy woodlands, interspersed with agricultural land and volcanic hills from the top of Craigieburn to the south edge of Wallan, along Merri Creek north catchment area. This unbuilt project proposes a visionary alternative to low dense housing estates that are laid across the landscape of this area specifically, and generally also found in peri-urban development sites on the fringe of Australian cities. It explores the possibility of development coexisting as part of a healthy ecosystem, integrating the new built spaces to a shared public ‘grassland common’ that is kept free from new footprint.